JGSLI Programs – Sept. 2015 to June 2016

Program details are subject to change. Please watch www.jgsli.org for the latest information.

Date Location Speaker(s) Topic

Sunday, Sept. 20 Mid-Island Y-JCC Renee Stern Steinig "Finding Joe Seltzer" 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road Renee Steinig will tell the story of JGSLI’s (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview successful effort to reunite an ID bracelet found www.miyjcc.org in the Arizona desert with a Brooklyn GI’s surviving family. Her presentation will illustrate the path we followed to learn more about Pfc. Joseph G. Seltzer and to identify his parents and their descendants. FindaGrave, censuses, military records, newspapers, the Social Security Death Index, PeopleFinders, Geni and ultimately Facebook were among the sources that led to a poignant conclusion, 70 years after the young soldier's death.

Sunday, Oct. 18 Plainview-Old Dr. Rhoda Miller, Ed.D., CG "Researching the Wandering Jew: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Bethpage Library Two Generations in Six Countries” (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) 999 Old Country Road Oral history and early information in our Plainview research are often incomplete or misleading www.poblib.org because our ancestors moved a lot. Social history greatly impacts the lives of generations who lived in Eastern Europe. Rhoda will present research strategies that unfold the stories of a family who were "wandering " within Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, England, Canada, and the .

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Sunday, Nov. 1 Mid-Island Y-JCC Bonnie Birns, Chair “Jewish Genealogy 101: 12:30 – 5:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road Four Hours+ to Your Family Roots” Plainview JGSLI’s 25th Annual www.miyjcc.org Family History Workshop

… a review of the fundamentals of Jewish genealogy. Topics include interviewing relatives; identifying ancestral towns; Holocaust research; using censuses, city directories, ship's manifests, naturalizations, vital records, and other U.S. sources; European records; and internet resources. Early-bird rate (through Oct. 26): $45. After Oct. 26 and at the door: $55. Additional family member: $15. Fee includes a workbook (one per family, on a flash drive), a copy of Avotaynu’s Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy: 2015 Edition, a light lunch, and 2016 membership dues. Send checks to JGSLI, Attn. Bonnie Birns, 28 Madison Ave., Jericho NY 11753. Questions? Contact Bonnie ([email protected], 516.433.0130).

Sunday, Nov. 22 Mid-Island Y-JCC Glenn Kurtz “Rescuing the Evidence: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road Three Minutes in Poland” (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview Visiting his hometown in Poland in August 1938, www.miyjcc.org one year before the outbreak of World War II, David Kurtz captured three minutes of ordinary life on film. More than 70 years later, these few minutes of home movie footage would become a memorial to an entire community annihilated in the Holocaust. His grandson Glenn Kurtz, author of the critically acclaimed book Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film, will describe his four-year effort to identify the people in the film’s haunting images – a search that took him across the United States, to Canada, England, Poland and Israel, to archives, film preservation laboratories, and an abandoned Luftwaffe airfield. http://glennkurtz.com

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Sunday, Dec. 20 Mid-Island Y-JCC Avraham Groll “How Did Jews Get to Europe?” 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road (Part 2) (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview Continuing the interesting presentation he gave us www.miyjcc.org last April, Avraham Groll will tell us more about patterns of Jewish migration after the decline of Babylonian Jewry in the 9th and 10th centuries. He will use maps, pictures, and documents to illustrate why Jews chose (or were forced) to seek new homelands in Europe, the places they settled, and how they lived. Avraham Groll was recently appointed JewishGen's Senior Director of Business Operations.

Sunday, Jan. 24 Mid-Island Y-JCC Andrew Zalewski “Galician Portraits: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road The Story of Jews, Gentiles, and Emperors” (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview Andrew Zalewski is the author of Galician Portraits -- www.miyjcc.org the story of his father's family, and much more. Set in large cities, small towns, and tiny villages of MEETING CANCELLED Austrian Galicia -- the region that from 1772 to 1918 DUE TO SNOW. spanned parts of today’s Poland and Ukraine -- the book reflects on centuries of Jewish history in the

region, on the interaction between its ethnic groups, WE HOPE TO and on the debates and tensions within the diverse RESCHEDULE Jewish community. Despite the challenges to tracing DR. ZALEWSKI Jewish heritage anywhere in Europe, especially in the FOR FALL 2016. years of the Holocaust, Dr. Zalewski has discovered many voices that had long been forgotten, as well as

surprising details about his own family. His talk will http://thelzopress.com be illustrated by genealogical findings and by archival pictures and old maps of Galicia.

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Sunday, Feb. 21 Mid-Island Y-JCC Terry Koch-Bostic “Read All About It! Finding Spicy Stories 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road of N.Y. Ancestors in Newspapers Online” (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview Genealogy is exciting but vital records can leave us www.miyjcc.org wishing we knew more. Newly digitized newspaper collections, now online, have made it easy to scroll through hundreds of newspapers in State and beyond, to find untapped, enlightening and even spicy details about our ancestors. Terry Koch-Bostic, a professional genealogist and popular speaker at national and regional conferences, will describe the clues, insights, and surprises to be found in obituaries, court and

police reports, and other newspaper articles.

Sunday, March 27 Mid-Island Y-JCC Arthur Kurzweil “45 Years as a Jewish Genealogist: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road A Cranky Critique” (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview Based on his four and a half decades in the field, www.miyjcc.org Arthur Kurzweil, author of From Generation to Generation, will explore the underbelly of the world of Jewish genealogy — our mistakes, our misbehavior, our sins of omission and our sins of commission — and he will offer some strong suggestions for the future.

http://arthurkurzweil.com

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Sunday, April 17 Mid-Island Y-JCC Bennett Greenspan “Family Tree DNA” 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road An entrepreneur and life-long genealogy (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview enthusiast, Bennett Greenspan founded Family www.miyjcc.org Tree DNA (https://www.familytreedna.com) in 1999, turning a hobby into a full-time vocation. He’ll tell us about the latest developments in genetic genealogy and how they can help our family research.

Sunday, May 22 Mid-Island Y-JCC Judy G. Russell “The Ethical Genealogist” 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road Genealogists deal with sensitive issues all the (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview time: how to handle family secrets, what to say www.miyjcc.org about living people, crediting the work of others. Learn more about the ethical challenges of trying to solve family history mysteries in the 21st century from Judy Russell – aka “The Legal Genealogist.” An attorney AND certified genealogist, Ms. Russell is a popular lecturer and blogger who sheds light on the legal and ethical issues important to genealogists. Read more about her at www.legalgenealogist.com.

Sunday, June 26 Mid-Island Y-JCC Bill Farran “A Bialystok Travelogue” 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. 45 Manetto Hill Road After years of research, Bill knew much about his (Mavens 1:30 p.m.) Plainview family's history in Eastern Europe -- addresses, www.miyjcc.org occupations, even burial places. But eventually he realized that to truly understand his ancestors’ lives he'd have go to their towns -- to breathe the air and see the sites. The process went from an idea to a plan -- where to go, how to get there, and how to navigate lands (Poland, Lithuania, Belarus) without knowing their languages. In his informative and entertaining talk, Bill will describe the planning process as well as his trip to ancestral lands.